sounds familiar?

As I have been saying, the language you hear and don't understand is not wasted time. Natural acquisition begins with a large amount of input that you won't be able to comprehend but still is needed to become used to the language. All the time exposed to the language is a preparatory period that is vital to later acquisition.

The Foreign Language Doctor has found this article that was published just today.

Sound patterns boost language learning - study

4:00AM Wednesday Jan 28, 2009

Exposure to the sound patterns of another language, even if it is initially meaningless, could hold the key to quickly picking up a foreign tongue, says a researcher.

Victoria University PhD graduate Paul Sulzberger made his discovery while trying to find out why many students dropped out in the early days of trying to learn a new language.

He believed his findings could revolutionise language teaching.

Listening to a language's sound patterns was critical as it set up structures in the brain required to learn the words, he found.

"Our ability to learn new words is directly related to how often we have been exposed to the particular combinations of the sounds which make up the words," he said. "Neural tissue required to learn and understand a new language will develop automatically from simple exposure to the language - which is how babies learn their first language."

He was interested in what made it so difficult to learn foreign words when we were constantly learning new ones in our native language. He found the answer in the way the brain developed neural structures when hearing new combinations of sounds.

"When we are trying to learn new foreign words we are faced with sounds for which we may have absolutely no neural representation.

"A student trying to learn a foreign language may have few pre-existing neural structures to build on in order to remember the words."

Extending exposure to foreign languages had been made easier by globalisation and new technology.

Listening to songs, movies and even foreign news reports on the internet were all easy ways to expose the brain to foreign language sounds, Dr Sulzberger said.

- NZPA

Copyright ©2009, APN Holdings NZ Limited

Accents

OK, I've finally decided to write something. In my last post, I alluded to a reason for children being able to eventually speak their new language without an accent, whereas those a little older typically get stuck with an accent. Now I will tell you why that is. It is just my idea, though. So take it or leave it.

First of all, I should mention that we are talking about immigrant children. They are brought by their parents to a new country and they have to learn a new language.

What is the difference between the younger children and the older children? It is not physical. It is not that the older children or even the adults are too old to be able to speak without a foreign accent. So what is the difference?

Well, what is expected is what is different! The older you are, the more you are expected to start speaking and using your new language skills. The younger you are, the less that is expected of you. If you are only 8 years old, nobody is going to ask you to explain why the president's plan is doomed from the outset. No, you are just going to go to school, tell people your name and that is about it. You'll come home, watch hours and hours of TV, go to school and listen to your teachers and classmates talking. An 8 year old is not going to jump right in and start hacking away at the language. The younger you are, the more time you have to absorb the sounds of the language.

A high school student is at a much higher social level than an elementary school kid. The high schooler will be asked many more questions and fellow classmates will be interested in talking and finding out about the new foreign kid on the block. The high school student will be interacting and involved to a much deeper degree, while the younger brother learns how to play tag and yell, "You're it!"

So now you can see that the kids don't have any magic. They just have more time before they need to talk. They listen and learn how the language sounds. In a year, maybe two, the younger child has absorbed much more of the language and done less thinking. The older child has done much more thinking, speaking, and reinforcing bad habits.

It's essential to work on pronunciation before you get used to speaking. Lots of listening helps. At least do 2 weeks of listening before ever attempting to speak. If you really work on pronunciation in the beginning, then I think the maximum listening-only period would be about 2 months. In the beginning of language learning, the only important thing is concentrating on the sounds (pronunciations) of the language. After that, concentrate on reproducing those sounds perfectly.

Once you have pronunciation down perfectly, it will be your second nature. It won't require any extra effort.

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Money motivates

Do you like to get your money's worth? I know I do. I don't like to waste money. Who does? Which is more valuable to you, a free language course or one you have to pay for? If you are given a free language course, you won't really appreciate it. You won't put any time or effort into it. If you have to pay for your language course, you'll put a lot more time and effort into it. You'll want to get your money's worth out of it.

But then what happens down the road? You forget about all that money you spent. You start to lose your motivation. You're still studying the same course you bought. Now it's getting boring. So, what next?

Remember when you first got that course? Do you remember how excited you were? That excited feeling represented a total interest in learning the language. When you are excited, you are more attentive and more aware. You learn faster and retain information better. That attention is also concentration. This is the real factor in language learning. If we develop our powers of concentration, we can learn languages better and faster.


I'm going to work on my ability to concentrate while I'm listening to language lessons. I'm talking about deep, intense concentration. The key is to break everything down to a single unit. The basic unit is the sentence. Listen to it, concentrate on the meaning and the new words. Loop it for a minute or two. That minute of concentration is more productive than reviewing flashcards over and over. You are not busy trying to figure out the meaning of the next sentence or the next idea. Instead you just concentrate on one unit. And it sinks in.

Well, that is the basis for my studies from now on. It is by no means an easy task. My mind starts to wander after about 10 or 20 seconds. But I think concentration is something that can be developed.

P.S.
And you thought this post was going to be an info-mercial, didn't you. Hahaha...

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The listening-only period

Today, I would like to tell you about the "listening-only" period of language learning. It is an idea that I first heard about on the forum over at how to learn any language dot com and I think it was Max who first posted the idea.

The idea is, when you begin learning a language, only listen and do not try speaking. You need time to get used to the sounds, rhythm and intonation of the language. If you start speaking before you are familiar with the language then you will make a habit of your poor pronunciation. And everybody knows, bad habits are hard to kick. Once you have a feel for the language and you begin speaking, you should sound pretty good and if you don't, you'll hear it yourself! You'll be able to correct yourself right away. Most likely, you will be able to sound pretty natural since the language has become a part of you.

How long should you wait before you start practicing your voice? I would say, the longer, the better. At least a minimum of 2 months. 3 or 4 months would be ideal in most situations. Right now, I am in a listening-only period for the Chinese language. I have been listening for about 4 months now. I will continue for another 3 months making a total of 7 months. During this period I listen to lessons and to radio podcasts. I try to increase my knowledge and understanding of words in the language. I call it my preparation stage because I am preparing to speak Chinese.

Do you have any comments about the listening-only period?

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